In Minneapolis, Purple Still Reigns

Sujata Massey

dem atlas covers Prince this past weekend

Last weekend, when I was visiting the "Twin Cities" of Minneapolis and St. Paul, I was hit with an unexpected surge of purple.

Purple was the favorite color of Prince, a Minnesota funk-rock star--and April 21 was the one-year anniversary of his untimely death in 2016 by overdose. I grew up in St. Paul and was just a few years younger than the man born Prince Rogers Nelson. Prince released his first album, "Soft and Wet," at the age of 17, and avidly followed his every move over the next several decades, as did my sisters.  Like Prince, we were young people of color living in a state that was predominantly white. There were no black musicians played on the radio except for on our sole "black" station,  KMOJ-FM.

Scene outside First Avenue at Prince Memorial

 It was hard to make friends, or find someone willing to date you, when you were a few shades darker than the majority or had an unpronounceable name. It was exhilarating to see Prince—a small, light-skinned black man who wore lace and satin and high heels—fearlessly be himself.

Artists who perform at First Ave are celebrated in stars. Only Prince's is golden

Prince’s biggest local shows were at a large nightclub called First Avenue at the downtown Minneapolis. First Avenue remains one of the top national nightclubs that still showcases local performers. Prince’s first film, Purple Rain, is a fictitious story in which he plays "The Kid," someone very much like himself, trying to make it in show business, get the girl, and deal with some hard family issues. The 1984 movie was a hit, with Prince's artistry stealing the show. Watching it later, I notice how mixed-race his audience appeared. People seemed to forget about traditional boundaries and fell in love with his hypnotic beats and daring lyrics. I mark this as the start of a new Minnesota. 

Purple Rain, best film score ever

Prince shot to stardom shortly after I’d become 18, the legal age to go to First Avenue's night shows. When he came to Baltimore's Civic Center, I was a college student and bought a ticket to his show. I pushed my way to the edge of backstage and gave one of the roadies a note addressed to  my high school friend, Susan Moonsie, who'd become a singer one of his custom-made opening bands: Vanity Six. I was gloriously lucky to find myself escorted backstage, where I hung out with Susan all night and met the other Vanity 6 singers and the men of The Time.  However, I didn't get to exchange words with Prince. Susan didn't want to introduce me because the two of them were in an argument.

Brenda, Vanity and Susan of Vanity 6

Despite his superstar status, Prince  never abandoned Minnesota. He built a massive home and recording studio in the suburb of Chanhassen named Paisley Park, after one of his songs, and often opened it to friends and fans who came for private parties with performances. Prince sometimes showed up to play at Minneapolis’s Dakota jazz club or First Avenue. 

Paisley Park is now open to tourists

During Prince’s adult years, Minnesota diversified. The state became the chief home of refugees from Somalia. It became a leader in families with international adoptions and was said to be "the gayest city after San Francisco."

Last weekend St. Paul, Minneapolis and Edina lit their buildings and bridges purple honoring Prince

Was Prince a symbol of civic change--or was he an agent of change?

 I wondered about this as I walked through the Twin Cities last weekend listening to the top favorite 89 Prince Songs on The Current, a Minnesota Public Radio station that, like KMOJ, had a special relationship with the artist. Spring comes late in the upper Midwest—while the grass was green, the tulips were just popping and the trees were taking on a light haze of leaves. In many neighborhoods, the gardens sprouted yard signs: “Black Lives Matter,” and “Falcon Heights: The World is Watching,” a reference to the fatal police shooting of Philando Castile in my own neighborhood that came a few months after Prince's death.

The most popular sign was in rainbow hues, with the state of Minnesota on one sign and on the other, the phrase, “All Are Welcome Here." The overt activism reminded me of the growing political and spiritual content of Prince’s work in the years just before his death. He had his eyes on the world, and he wanted to keep building bridges.

In April 2015, I was living in Baltimore during a period that it seemed one black male after another was killed by police. In Baltimore, a young man named Freddie Gray was arrested on suspicion of carrying drugs; he died after a short ride to jail in a police van. During a two-day period after Freddie’s funeral, areas of Baltimore were filled with destructive protestors and hundreds of fires were set. We endured almost a week of curfew and a city takeover by soldiers with the National Guard.

We never dreamed that Prince's career would end a year later

As the city was stilling itself, the city had stilled—but hardly returned to normal—Prince announced he was coming to Baltimore to perform a free "Rally 4 Peace."  He booked the Royal Farms Arena at his own expense. He wrote a song called “Baltimore” that was compassionate yet had a happy,  bopping beat. The song will never be his greatest hit, but it seems a perfectly distilled essence of his style and dogged determination to share joy as the way forward.  

Music to Write By: the soundtrack of the novel

Zoë Sharp

Well, Christmas is over and January always seems a bit of a lacklustre month. The days are starting to lighten fractionally, but I know full well that we have not yet seen the coldest part of winter. Even if the daffodils are somewhat optimistically poking up green shoots, spring seems a long way off.

It’s not just the length of the days, however, it’s the quality of the light when it does finally put in an appearance. Dull and gloomy, requiring a desk lamp even at midday, and the fire lit by three o’clock in the afternoon.

The roads are perpetually plastered in mud, and so are the sides of my car. The bike is tucked away in the garage. There’s rain on every forecast, and if we make it through to March without snow it will be a first. In fact, as I write this the news is predicting snow and sub-freezing temperatures in the next week.

Perfect time of year, then, to be curled up inside, next to the aforementioned fire, with a book.

And I’ve been doing plenty of reading, both for research and for pleasure.

It’s also a good time to be indoors writing a book. I have a full schedule of work ahead of me that should last well past the rough weather and into the smooth. I’ve recently invested in a daylight lamp to banish the winter blues while I’m at my desk, and I’ve rediscovered one what has been in the past my strongest writing tools.

Music.

Although I no longer have my CD collection, I do have an external hard drive with most of the music contained on them loaded onto it. And in a lot of ways that’s even more conducive to writing. I’ve created a playlist of all my favourites, which I play in full Shuffle mode. Hours of music without having to get up to change a disc! The segues from one style to another are sometimes startling, but as these are all my favourites, there’s nothing I don’t like.

Some people have to have a place of tranquillity and complete silence while they write. Others can work quite happily in a busy café with all kinds of hubbub going on around them. Back when I still had a day-job as a photographer, I used to get a lot of scribbling done in the car on the way to shoots. Music on the car stereo, and no distractions of the Internet, or just nipping to the kitchen to make another brew.

(I was in the passenger seat for most of these trips, I ought to add, just in case you were wondering.)

I’ve always found that music conveys atmosphere almost instantly. It’s why it’s the constant backdrop to movies, TV and advertising. What would James Bond be without that distinctive John Barry score?

Or Jaws without the foreboding John Williams music to go along with it?

Cyndi Lauper’s ‘True Colors’ has found its way into many adverts as well as an anti-bullying campaign because the melody is as haunting the lyrics.

When I first heard Rachel Platten’s ‘Fight Song’, there was something about her voice from the moment she starts to sing. But as she goes into the chorus, it brings the hairs up on the back of my neck, the prickle in my chest. Instant emotion.

And I’ve been watching quite a bit of freestyle Grand Prix dressage recently, including the qualifier for the 2016 Olympics which was held at Olympia in London just before Christmas. But this older test by Edward Gal of the Netherlands, on the great Moorlands Totilas shows how music can emphasise and accentuate something that is already stunning. They call it dancing horses, and you’d swear the horse is listening to and keeping time with the music.

For me, listening to music while I write helps me to plug straight into an emotion or the kind of atmosphere I want to create. As long as the music is on low enough that it permeates my brain on an almost-subliminal level. I’ve found I can’t work well with headphones. It’s too immediate. I need a little distance in order for it to have its greatest effect.

What about you? Do you listen to music while you write, or work, or do you prefer the sound of silence? And, if you listen while you type or scribble, what are your favourites?

This week’s Word of the Week is cuckquean. I hadn’t come across this before, although its male equivalent, cuckold is far more common. Where a cuckold is the unwitting husband of an adulterous wife, so a cuckquean is the unwitting wife of an adulterous husband. Both have their roots from the cuckoo bird, which lays its eggs in other birds’ nests and leaves them to bring up young not their own. Sometimes shortened to cuck, it came into use in the mid 13^th century. The important part is that the spouse should be deceived. A related word, for instance, is wittol, meaning a man who is aware of his wife’s infidelity and accepts it.